Buying a Broadband Firewall Router. Help plz

[pball68]

I am looking at buying a router that has a firewall in it for my 3 computers at home. I do not want wireless so please don't suggest any of those types.

I am looking at the Linksys BEFSX41 right now.

Can anyone tell me what their expierences have been with the different Firewall routers out there on the market. Also if you know anything good or bad with the one I am looking at, I would like to know that as well.

Thanks in advance

 

[rook]

I run a Linksys BEFSR41 and have had no problems with it. With my experience you don't need a firewall router, the NAT does the job just fine. Whats the price defference between the two?

"Quotes are for people that can't think for themselves"
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=23900" target="_new">My PC</A>

 

[jihiggs]

i doubt you will find a home use router that doesnt have a firewall.

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[pball68]

Only like $25. Thanks for the feedback on yours though

 

[umheint0]

Frankly, despite what anyone says, I don't like NAT proxies. They change your computer's internal IP address so that if you try to go do things like online gaming, you will have problems hosting games because the other computers will try to connect to your internal IP instead of the external IP (ISP-assigned). It works pretty well if you just participate in online games, but it limits a lot of access to your computer, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you want your router to do. I want it to do nothing but file and internet sharing.

umheint0's phat setup --> <A HREF="http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umheint0/system.html" target="_new">http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umheint0/system.html</A><--

 

[rook]

You just havbe to foward the port the game is using to the computer that is hosting. External systems connenct to the IP that your ISP provides and the router will foward it to your internal address.

"Quotes are for people that can't think for themselves"
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=23900" target="_new">My PC</A>

 

[pball68]

Ya I know about the private/internal IP's I will get. Can't really get around it since I have 3 computers and only one IP addy from my ISP...unless I want my packets smashing together from all the comps playing/surfing at the same time. Thx for the help.

 

[pball68]

Hmmm I will have to read up on that when I get my router.

Still waiting on Feedback on any of the routers out there before I buy..

 

[umheint0]

That doesn't work, because even though the packets are being forwarded, your internal IP is still different than your external, and there are lots of software packages out there that restrict what you do if your internal IP is different than your external IP.

umheint0's phat setup --> <A HREF="http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umheint0/system.html" target="_new">http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umheint0/system.html</A><--

 

[pdm1881]

If you have Cable, then the Linksys should be fine. I have DSL, and when I bought my router, the Linksys had trouble with DSL. They probably fixed that now, but it would be worth checking. Tim Higgins sold practicallynetworked.com (or whatever name it became), and I don't know where to check right now (maybe there). Anyhow, I bought the Netgear equivalent, and have been VERY happy. They now make one with a print server included - parallel only, though. I think I saw it for under $60. If you have a parallel printer with some life left in it to share, I'd go for it. Or get a Canon i850 on sale this week at microcenter.com - it has parallel. You do want to share your printer without powering up two machines, don't you?

 

[pball68]

That is very helpful. As for the printer sharing, I will do that via XP after I get the FW setup. Thanks for you insite.